Instrumentation:

Notes de programme
:Crimson began life in 2004 as a piece for two singers, three dancers and three instruments. The scenario was developed jointly with the choreographer Harriet Macauley to abstractly convey the emotions involved in a love triangle in which no one gets what they want. We chose to tell the story with four different texts in four archaic languages, each of which tells a different aspect of the same, archetypal story. Though the music had been composed and rehearsals got underway, the dancers were unable to stay with the project and I was left with about 8 minutes of music and no prospect of performance. Fast-forward two years. Having become increasingly interested in film as a medium for art, I decided that it would be a good idea to rewrite Crimson as a soundtrack for a silent film, an idea I proposed to the Cinematography Society at the University of York. Nezih Savaskan took up the project, and spent a year shooting footage, while I completely rewrote the score, keeping the best of what I had written two years earlier, while adding material and reworking it to suit my current artistic ideas.The piece was premiered on 6 May 2006, accompanied by Nezih Savaskan’s film. However, I do not view that as the definitive version of the piece. The score is finished, but I envisage that this piece could be performed with any number of different accompaniments: dance, film, or anything else.